Bleeding 'Round the Edges
by make-your-own-world
Summary: Band AU. Nick Walker is a part of the world's number one band, the Flock. Max's got a dark past to hide. They meet under strange circumstances and it's quite obvious Max doesn't like him, so why does Fang feel like he knows her? ON HIATUS
1. Meet Strange

_People don't really remember much when they were ten._

 _Max doesn't want to forget this._

 _And 'this' is—well, everything. Her mom is home even though the doctors keep urging her to come back and prolong something and she and Max's best friend's mother are talking animatedly in lawn chairs in the shade. Max's stepfather isn't there at the moment and she and Fang are playing. Roughhousing, actually, with Max's sister refereeing. Ella loves watching the fights; fascinated is the right vocabulary word that Max would use, but she never wants to actually use her fists. Maya, on the other hand, is playing with Fang's other siblings._

 _Normally Max and Fang also play with Maya, Iggy, and Nudge, but when she doesn't want to play Fang follows her unquestioningly. Ella drifts._

 _Max and Fang are rolling over and over on the dusty ground, Ella pacing nearby and ready to call any cheating._

 _In one quick movement, Max twists their bodies over completely so she's panting and straddling Fang's body. He looks up at her, red-cheeked, but only he knows the blush isn't just from the exertion (because it's hard to be in love with your best friend, but it's even harder to pretend that you're not, and the worst part is that they're both ten and Max's mom is dying and after that who knows what might happen but right now Max is grinning down at him, and he's red-cheeked, and he's got all her attention and it's perfect)._

 _"—only ten, and it's so obvious," Fang hears his mother say._

 _Max's mom laughs. "The daisy chains, remember?"_

 _Max shifts on Fang's chest, drawing his attention back to her and gosh, is she pretty. "Do you give up?"_

 _Fang heaves up, sending Max flying and then sprawling into the dust because he knows she can handle it. Their mother's talk filters into his ears again: "—would follow her to the ends of the earth."_

 _"They're only ten," his mom reminds Mrs. Martinez._

 _"That doesn't mean they can't be in love," Valencia sighs. "The worst part of youth is the older people saying that their feelings aren't valid because they're not as old as them. Does age affect their range of emotions?"_

 _Max springs to her feet before lunging for Fang. He spins away before bringing his fingers, weaved together, down onto her shoulder with enough power to send her to the ground again. Max sweeps her foot under Fang's and he falls too. Again, Max sits on his chest. Fang looks at her and hopes that his emotions aren't clear on his face._

 _"So sweet," Valencia says before coughing._

 _Max's head jerks up. Fang uses the momentary distraction to pull Max down, hard, and presses both his hands to her shoulders. She may be strong but he's bigger than her and his weight certainly helps with this move._

 _"Gerroff!" Max grunts._

 _"Max loses!" Ella sings._

 _"Shuddup," Max snaps to her. The words have a definite edge but they're not meant to be mean. You can tell when you've grown up with Max like Fang has._

 _Max's triplet sticks her tongue out at her. While Max and Maya are identical triplets, Ella is fraternal and has dark, curly hair, and the double M's have straight dirty-blonde hair._

Fang POV:

Never in my life would I imagine myself to be pounding on the door of a random person's apartment, begging for them to let me in with increasing urgency.

Then again, never in my life before the Flock would I have imagined myself to be chased after by hundreds of fans begging for an autograph or a picture. Judging by the sound down in the lobby of the building, they've just arrived. How did I not lose them, considering I'm currently in New York and zigzagged around before ducking in here? How was I recognized with my disguise? I'm wearing _color_ and _sun_ _glasses_ , for jeezum's sake.

The door to room 638 swings open just as I'm trying to pound on it again. I stumble forwards before catching myself. A little girl peers up at me, blinking her large blue eyes slowly, before smiling and tossing her blonde princess curls over her shoulder. "Hi! I'm Angel! I'm eight years old! Do you want something?"

"Angel, who's at the door?" a low voice calls; a mixture between male and female. I don't have a clue who the speaker could be, but I'm praying for a male. If I've stumbled into the flat of a crazy fangirl, who knows what they'd do?

I can hear a steady march of footsteps and distant screams. They're taking the stairs and getting closer.

Finally, _finally,_ the speaker rounds the corner. It's a girl, about my age, with sandy blonde hair that reaches the middle of her back, a backwards baseball cap, relaxed jeans, and a tee-shirt. She blinks her large chocolate eyes at me twice before telling Angel tersely to shut the door.

 _Wha_ —? At the very worst, I'd expected a shriek or a squeal. Not her talking like I'm a stranger. It's actually... kinda refreshing.

I lash my hand out to hold the closing door. "Wait!"

The girls both tense—nearly imperceptible. The older girl takes a step towards Angel slowly, as if expecting me to attack, and another blonde-haired, blue-eyed bundle tumbles into my line of sight.

"Hey!" he beams, similarly friendly like Angel and the exact opposite of the older girl. She eyes me like I'm weilding a large knife.

"Can I... come in?" I beg, my throat going dry as I hear footsteps one floor down. I have, at the most, two minutes to plead my case. "There's sort of a horde after me. I'm... I'm, uh..."

"You're Nick Walker," the older girl says coolly, her eyes scrutinizing me sharply. "I know. Did you think glasses and a brown shirt was going to hide the face that's plastered everywhere on social media, magazines, _anything_?"

"Yes, yes, I'm stupid, but can I come in?" I ask desperately. _"Obviously_ my disguises need more work, considering half of New York's population is after me."

The girl's lip curls. "We all know Tae Kwon Do," she warns, "so don't even think about trying anything funny."

I nod desperately. "Anything, I'll take pictures and sign whatever, just save me from these lunatics!"

The girl sighs and nods to Angel. Angel smiles brightly at me before opening the door. I slip in, just in time. The second it shuts, the stairway door slams open and a stampede can be clearly heard out in the hallway.

Now that I'm safely behind a thick door, I realize exactly how awkward waiting out the horde is going to be. Angel is frowning between the older girl and I, the boy is frowning at me like he recognizes me (extremely likely), and the girl is still tensed and wary like she's expecting me to slip a knife out of my pocket and lunge for them.

"Angel, over here," she commands. The girl in question follows after only a moment of hesitation, though she throws me a look over her shoulder as she goes. "You can stay right at the door." She comes back quickly enough just, it would seem, to stare at me.

I cough awkwardly into my fist, using the action as an excuse to let my eyes wander. The older girl's stare is super freaking intimidating, despite the fact that she's about a foot shorter than me. I suppose I should be a little scared, because when she folds her arms across her chest, I can see definite muscles there. Considering she's not at all star struck, I have to conclude that if I make one wrong movement, she'll beat me up.

"I'm F-Nick," I stumble, forgetting the stage name that's been burnt into my memory since day one. The whole awkwardness of the situation is scrambling my brains up (I refuse to even harbor the idea that it's the fact that I've met a girl that's not a rabid fan and am kinda-sorta considering proposing on the spot in hopes of keeping the wild fangirls away).

"I know," the girl deadpans. She doesn't twitch or offer her own name.

"Max, is Nick staying for dinner?" Angel shouts from the kitchen of what looks to be a reasonably large apartment.

The girl—Max, apparently—twitches then, arms tensing and relaxing in a fraction of a second, before she bellows, "Hopefully not!"

I swallow down the sting of that remark and shove my hands in my pockets—a bad idea, because Max stiffens and sidles towards me imperceptibly again. Slowly, I take my hands out of my pockets and raise them in the air with a sheepish grin. Max looks a little embarrassed at being caught defensive, but then her eyes narrow.

She moves cautiously towards me until we're nose-to-nose. She smells like mint.

Then I feel her hands rummaging in my pockets.

I jerk away with a protest. Maybe the whole indifferent act had been just that: an act. Maybe she's just as crazed as the rest of them.

"Relax," the small boy says, poking his head out of the kitchen. "Max's just making sure you don't have a gun."

With that none-too-reassuring proclamation, he slips back into the kitchen.

I look down and blink. My pockets are empty, their contents on the small coffee table outside the door. Max sifts through them with a small frown before the scowl lines in her forehead lessen the smallest bit. What's with this girl? Why's she so skittish?

"Should they really be cooking without supervision?" I finally ask after clearing my throat.

Max's head jerks up, the cloudy look in her eyes fading immediately. "I'm banned from the kitchen," she says ruefully, mouth twisted in what could almost be a grin, before her face shuts down again.

"That bad?" I ask with my own friendly grin, hoping to reassure her that I'm not crazy either. Or stuck-up because I'm in a band. "Don't worry; I'm banned from the kitchen in our hotel room also. Iggy's the one who cooks usually, and he's great, thank God, because if it was up to anyone else we'd be eating PB&J eternally."

Max's mouth twitches again. "How'd you get—well, chased?" She motions to the hallway, which thankfully has lessened with noise. Now that I'm paying attention, footsteps pound upstairs. "Apart from the obvious flaws in your disguise."

I roll my eyes. "Got cooped up. It's kind of annoying. The reason I'm here is the reason I'm supposed to stay in my hotel room all the time."

Max frowns all of a sudden. "Who's Iggy?"

My heart drops down to about my toes. Is she really going to pick apart everything I say? Take back what I said about her being skittish; she's plain paranoid. Taking care to make sure my face is neutral, I reply, "Nickname for James."

Max frowns, fingers twitching in the air above the things she'd taken from my pockets. "The… the pale one, right? Carrot-colored hair?"

I snort. "That's him."

Max shoves the stuff on the coffee table in my direction and stands up and backs away rather than just turning around. "Here. You can leave when you know they're gone. Not right now, though, because they haven't gone all the way to the top and there's two people in the hallway."

"How can you tell that?" I demand but she's already disappeared into a doorway just to the left of the kitchen door.

"Nick, can you help set the table?" the boy calls. Bewildered at how horribly Max is taking my presence, and how terrifically the kids are, I wander into the kitchen. Angel shoves a pile of plates into my arms, but not before I take a glimpse of boiling water in a large pot.

Angel leads me into a room to the right of the kitchen (two rooms away from Max, my brain takes note and then I immediately shove that thought away). "You play the guitar in that band, right?" she asks, setting down a fork at four places of the table. I hope that means I'm welcome for dinner and not that someone hasn't come home yet.

I just nod. Considering the Flock is the number one band in the world (seriously!), there's a good chance she's talking about the right one. We're probably number one because we don't stick to one genre and there are songs for literally anyone in each of our albums.

"Max likes your guys' songs," she says casually. "So does Gazzy. I do too, sometimes. Doesn't everyone?"

I tense then relax and then shrug with a noncommittal roll of my eyes. Angel seems to understand because she nods her head and bites her lip.

I hear Max's soft voice in the kitchen, talking about something about an 'episode'. The boy in there (most likely the one they call 'Gazzy' but the fourth plate was set down so effortlessly I'm nearly positive someone else lives with them, so could be that one too) replies something back teasingly before raising his voice and saying, "And you're banned from the kitchen, Max! Get out!"

"Jeez, Gaz," Max says, her voice a normal tone instead of a whisper.

Angel and I walk into the kitchen just in time to see Max trip over nothing and knock down a water glass that had been on the counter, shattering it to millions of tiny pieces.

"This is why I banned you!" Gazzy yelps. Gazzy—what an odd name.

"I've got it," I say smoothly.

"Broom's in there with dustpan," Angel says, not second-guessing my generosity.

It's almost creepy how quickly I've fallen into a comfortable zone with these people. 'These people' being Gazzy and Angel, because it's obvious Max isn't comfortable with my presence.

"I'm cursed just in the kitchen," Max gripes.

"So get out," Gazzy repeats. Max rolls her eyes and turns around, only to smack her face directly into the edge of the doorway. I snicker, unable to help myself, before grabbing the cleaning helpers.

As I'm reaching for them, I can hear thundering footsteps upstairs. The horde is leaving—at least, I hope they are.

Then I realize that the footsteps are all over the hall again. This time, there is the sound of doors opening and closing.

I nearly curse before remembering the little kids nearby.

"When they knock, just go hide in the bathroom," Gazzy tells me, noticing me tense up. "It's not a big deal; they're not police, they can't get in here without a warrant and if they try, Max'll knock 'em out." I notice the way he says Max's name; like she's a goddess to be admired from afar but not actually seen, heard or touched.

I force myself to relax and clean up the mess Max had made. I'm dumping the last of the powdered glass into the trash can (the insides and content look like they were showered with glitter) when someone pounds on the door.

I nearly sprint to the bathroom. I might be the cool, unflappable Nick Walker, but the thought of these maniacs finding me sends shivers down my spine. I had just wanted to take a walk after another super-stressful day and now I'm hiding in some rando's apartment from a mob of insane teenage girls.

The walls are thin, so I can hear it when the door opens and Max's voice is ice when she asks what they want.

The girl says something excitedly.

"No," is Max's short answer.

The girl presses, "Are you sure?"

Angel says something from the kitchen and I think Max gets distracted for a second because when she answers, I hear the girl sprint for the bathroom—maybe Max had glanced at it, or maybe it was just a lucky guess—but the door is wrenched open.

My heart stutters.

The girl is about to poke her head inside when she lets out a squeak and is wrenched out. There is a sickening sound of flesh on flesh, and the girl cries out.

"You just broke into our apartment without any sort of authority," Max says icily. "I think that's at least a felony and we could sue you for that."

The girl starts to sob. "I can sue for punching me!"

When Max speaks, her voice is indifferent, and I can almost imagine her shrugging: "Warranted for." Then I wonder how I know that she's shrugging. I guess she just kinda seems like that kind of person. The door slams a second later and then I poke my head out of the bathroom. Max is gone, the only sign that she'd even been there papers fluttering slightly from the breeze of her leaving.

I'm not sure, exactly, what to do. All the tables are set and I'm a disaster in the kitchen, looking around could be considered a threat to Max probably, and I can hardly wander around the apartment until I find her, because she might find that weird, even if I just want to thank her for covering for me. Then again, why would she treat me with such indifference and then punch a girl for me?

The feeling of confusion and exasperation that swells over me doesn't feel exactly unfamiliar, even though I'm quite sure no one else can irritate me in this way.


	2. Can't Mistake a Fan For a Member

_Fang glances over at the girl next to him. She should be crying, sobbing, hunched over, but she's stiff and straight-backed. Not a single emotion crosses her face during the ceremony but she shifts infinitesimally closer to Fang over the duration of it so at the very end she's pressed against him and as far away as possible from her stepfather._

 _He wants to tell her that it's all right, that he'll be there for her always, that he l…_

 _But no. Fang doesn't speak much because it's all he can do to not shout that he loves Max to the heavens. It takes every piece of his willpower to keep her face at a steady distance from his own._

 _He shouldn't feel this, he knows, not at so young an age, and not for his best friend._

 _He knows, but he doesn't stop. Really, he can't stop._

 _And it's not all right. Mrs. Martinez is dead and cold and she's being lowered into the ground in a coffin_ right now _, all because of some disease that Fang's mom calls 'cancer'._

 _And Fang won't always be there for Max, because she's leaving in two days. In two days she's leaving Arizona and moving to Colorado. Fang only has two days left with her._

 _That's not nearly enough time. Fang's grown up with Max and he's fought with her and laughed with her and grudgingly let her put daisy chains on his head like a crown and then didn't even rip up the picture she'd taken of him. He's bathed with her when they were four and raced her to the creek when they were seven._

 _He's seen everything there is to see about Max, but there's also_ more _, and all he'll be able to see in the next two days is Max packing._

 _Suddenly one of the baskets at Max's stepfather's feet lets out a harsh cry. The twins had been born just a month ago and somehow they'd still been alive even though they were grown in the stomach of a woman being eaten alive by her own body. Angel and Zephyr are their names but Max doesn't call Zephyr by his. She says it doesn't fit him._

 _Neither Max nor her stepfather make a move to comfort the crying child._

 _When they get to Max's house, Fang follows Max upstairs wordlessly. There are flowers on the counter and a piece of uneaten casserole on a plate._

 _Max's door isn't closed when Fang sees her jaw clench so tightly he's almost afraid the teeth will crack. With a swift motion, she yanks the dress over her head and then collapses into a ball wearing only underwear and fancy kitten-heeled shoes. Fang immediately reaches for her but she slaps his hand away without even looking. She's taking calm, even breaths, but she's not crying._

 _Fang doesn't know what to do and that terrifies him. He settles on rummaging through her drawers for a big tee-shirt and shorts._

 _Finally Max looks up and tears the dress in half before flinging the kitten heels off her feet. She grabs the clothes Fang wordlessly offers her and pulls them on with harsh, jerky movements, shaking her hair out of the twists that Fang had done that morning. Bobby pins scatter across the floor. She'd asked for them then, and Fang would do anything for her so he obliged. He doesn't mind that she shook them out; it was only a matter of time, after all._

 _Fang then notices the empty boxes stacked in a corner of Max's room._

Fang POV:

My fingers close around air.

I shake myself out of whatever weird state I'd fallen into, trying to figure out why Max is so peculiar yet so familiar, and my hands had drifted up to the hollow under my throat and reached for something, though I have no idea what. Now I think about it, my neck _does_ feel oddly bare.

"It's all clear," Max suddenly says, stepping into the entrance room. "I was watching out the window," she adds and then points unnecessarily.

"But Nick still has to stay for dinner," Angel yells from the other room. "We've got him a plate and everything!"

Max blinks, obviously not having expected that.

"Besides, maybe there's one or two crazy people in the hallways still!" Gazzy chimes in.

"We have to give Nick a tour of the house," Angel pouts, appearing in the doorway and drying her hands on a dishrag. She looks so much like a mother for a second that I have to blink.

"Fnick's busy, honey," Max says and up close, I realize just how different she sounds when talking to me and talking to the kids. Then I realize she'd called me 'Fnick'. She's either teasing me for my slipup or letting me know she doesn't think I'm telling the truth.

I really hope the former.

"Old people are always busy," Gazzy grumbles.

Max lets out a bark of a laugh. "Yeah, well, someone's gotta pay the bills."

"We don't; we've got An—" Gazzy starts but Max hastily slaps her hand over his mouth. "Ow!" Gazzy protests, shooting her a glare.

"Sorry," Max says, widening her eyes and tilting her head meaningfully at me.

I roll my eyes. If she's trying to be subtle about keeping something from me, it's not working. "Whatever. Let's eat," I say, trying to distract everyone from the staring match between Max and Gazzy.

Just as we're about to head in for food, someone fumbles with the lock outside and the door swings open. My heart sinks to my throat; so there is another person that lives here. An average-enough woman bustles in with a grocery bag in her arms. "Hey, guys, sorry I'm late, there's a weird pileup outside because there's a bunch of confused-looking people milling about, anyways, some workers are getting them cleared out! The bills are already paid for, so don't let the landlord harass you for some more money—we got that stuff back, by the way—"

"Anne!" Max nearly has to shout over this Anne's babbling. She tilts her head to me. Anne swivels and jumps when she sees me. Then she squeals. I hunch my shoulders down, preparing for pictures and autographs and lots and lots of questions (this woman looks a little too old to be obsessing over the Flock and its members but the squeal is similar to our fans') but all I get is lots and lots of questions.

"Oh, who are you?" she squeals, clapping her hands together and looking thrilled. "Max, you finally brought a boy home? Oh, and he looks so nice too, I bet he's ambitious and kind—" she swivels around to Max, whose expression is visibly switching between surprised and angry, "How did the two of you meet? How long have you been dating? Is this the first time he's come over? Do—"

"Anne!" Max says loudly again. "He's—we're—I'm not dating him! I hardly even know him!"

Anne's expression falters. "Then—"

"It's a long story," Angel pipes up. "Have you heard of the band the Flock?"

"Yes," Anne says, confused. She looks between me and Max quickly as if we'll provide the answers. I just raise one shoulder at her. "How could I not; they're number one band in the world. What's that got to do with this, though?"

"Well, this is Nick Walker, their guitarist, and he wanted to go for a walk because he's been cooped up in his hotel room all day but then some crazy people knew who he was so he had to run away and found this hotel and banged on our door to ask if we could hide him. Then the crazy people came and one girl tried to get into our apartment but Max punched her and gave her a black eye and now we're gonna have dinner before he leaves so it'll be dark when he does and then he doesn't get spotted again," Angel says quickly.

Anne's expressions during the speech went as such: surprise, empathy, there's-a-raccoon-in-my-house, I-just-surfaced-in-a-different-swimming-lane-than-I-started, anger, disappointment, and a-horse-just-shit-in-my-clothing-drawers-and-I'm-not-sure-exactly-whether-to-be-angry-or-impressed.

There's a brief silence, and then: "Oh." Anne glances around the room, as if we're all playing a practical joke on her, and then she bids a hasty goodbye and leaves.

So is that dinner plate for me after all?

"Don't worry; the fourth plate is for you," Angel says, convincing me that she's a mind reader.

There are no formalities at the dinner table. Gazzy hasn't sat down yet, and neither have I, but the two girls have already started on their spaghetti and meatballs. After a few quick bites, I feel the silence pressing down on me, which is strange. Normally I'm the one to make the silence, not break it.

"So…" I set down my fork. "Max. Is it short for anything?"

Without looking up, Max grunts "Maxine," but it doesn't feel right for her. I feel like I know what's right for her; it's right at the tip of my tongue, but when I chase after the memory it flutters away.

I'm eighteen; I've lived a long life (at least it feels long). Who knows, maybe Max and I have crossed paths before, or maybe I've seen her at one of our concerts, or shopping at a mall.

Or maybe I'm just stressed about the deadline for our new album coming up even though we need to write at least three more songs.

Yeah, it's probably that.

"Gazzy is short for the Gasman," Gazzy offers.

Angel laughs and elbows me. "You can probably tell why."

I can probably _imagine_ why. My nose crinkles as I think about it, but it turns out I don't even need to imagine, because Max, who's sitting across from Angel and next to Gazzy, drops her utensils with a clatter and presses her hands to her mouth and nose. Seconds later, the wave of stench hits me.

Angel gags next to me, and Max gasps for air. Gazzy just cackles. I search for a window and stumble to it, fumbling with the clasp before popping it open and breathing gratefully in cool air.

"Not cool, bro." I fix Gazzy with a stern look.

"Sorry," he mutters. Eventually the stench clears out and we all continue with our dinner.

We all finish around the same time and I volunteer to take the dishes to the sink (which I never do, I may add, at my own hotel room, so I'm being a good guest). The kids trail after me, and Max behind them. She's adopted back her wary stance, as if people routinely murder after spaghetti and meatballs. The second I set down the dishes, Angel is tugging on my shirt and attempting to pull me around the house.

"Fnick's gotta go, sweetie," Max says gently, unraveling Angel's hand from my shirt. "You two go up and get ready for bed, all right?"

The two grumble and protest and drag their feet but they listen to Max. Just before walking up a short staircase, Angel turns around and says sweetly, "See you later, Nick!"

Max mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like _Not if I can help it_.

As she's handing me back the stuff that had been in my pockets, my overstuffed wallet decides that now is the perfect time to finally rip at the seam.

Coins hit the ground with a clatter, bills flutter around, and a few plastic cards (both debit and credit) slide around. I mutter a curse. The chances of getting mugged when coins are clanking in your obviously full pockets increase by about 100%.

"I've got it," Max sighs before dashing up the staircase. I hear her pushing things aside above my head and then she comes thundering down again, brandishing a brown leather thing with a bunch of pockets. "I think it's empty," she says and then shakes it. No noise. "Yeah, it's probably good."

I shove my stuff haphazardly into the leather wallet. I can organize it when I get back. The leather is so much bigger and better than my old wallet, it makes me wonder how I got all my stuff in there in the first place. "Thanks," I say and we both know I'm not talking about the wallet. "Is there any way I can pay you back?"

Max waves a hand, looking both embarrassed and smug. "It really wasn't much trouble."

"What about merchandise?" I offer. "I can get you some Flock tees or concert tickets—"

"Dude," Max interrupts, expression settled now on 'slightly annoyed', "It's no big deal, Fnick. Really. Now leave."

I turn away but then her hand rests on my shoulder and she tells me to wait again. Jeez, how bipolar can this chick get?

"Disguise," Max explains, her smile twisted a little ruefully. "Here…" she takes the baseball cap off her head and positions it on mine facing forwards before digging through a laundry basket filled to the brim and pulling out a sweatshirt that would make Max look like a tent if she ever wore it. To my surprise, the front of it has a logo of a band on _it—_ _my_ band. "Can't mistake a fan for a member, can you?" She tries to be cool about it but I'm secretly delighted that she's not as chill about me being in her house as she'd like me to believe, if she has _actual Flock merchandise._

I shrug the sweatshirt on. It's still a little baggy on me too. It smells like mint—like Max.

The thought really shouldn't excite me as much as it does. Judging by Max's flushed cheeks, she's also not as unaffected as she's trying to act.

"How will I get this stuff back to you?" I ask, making sure no emotion bleeds into my tone. "Do you go to Goode High?"

Max cocks her head at me. "Yeah," she says slowly. "How'd you know?"

"There's only one high school for this area, so I took a chance and guessed," I say calmly.

Max lets out a long breath. "Are you guys still in school?"

"We get tutored, mostly," I shrug. "I mean, not me, because I finished early, but yeah."

"You don't need to get it back to me," Max says, her defenses suddenly rushing back up. I'm almost reeling at how quickly this girl's attitude changes. "I know you're busy, doing all your… band… stuff."

I let her push me out of the apartment before preparing myself for a long walk home. When I check my phone, my jaw drops. I have one message from Iggy and twelve missed calls from Nudge.

I work my jaw a few times before calling the Nudge Channel.

"Fang!" she squeals into the phone, nearly deafening me. "Where have you been?"

"Walk," I say shortly. "Got spotted. Ran."

"But where are you now and what have you been doing? Have you been doing autographs this whole time? You do realize that we're recording tomorrow, right? And have you heard about what Lissa said about you? She said you cheated on her with someone else! Can you—"

"I don't care what Lissa says and anyone that believes her is an idiot," I grit out, massaging my temple. Two minutes and Nudge's already given me a migraine. I love my adopted sister, I really do, but I've had a long day. A really long, confusing day. "I hid in someone's apartment until the mob passed. I'm walking home now."

"Whose apartment did you stay in?" Nudge babbles. "Was it a girl's? Was she—"

"Yes, it was a girl's." Why is that necessary information?

Nudge squeals again. "Was she cute? Did you guys talk a lot? Does she know about us? Oh no, was she another rabid fan?"

"She knows about us but she didn't really care that I was part of the band. I was mostly a nuisance to her, I think."

It takes Nudge a second to think of another question—but any moment of silence is a victory for me. "Well, that's odd behavior. I know if I met any of my personal heroes, I would—"

"Nudge," I interrupt.

"Anyways, did you guys talk a lot?"

"Not really—"

"Was she cute?"

"Nudge!"

"What was her name?"

I pause for a long time before replying. "Max."

Nudge is silent again, but this time it's a bigger loss for her than it is for me. When she finally speaks again, her voice is soft. "I'm sorry, Fang."

I shrug jerkily, even though she can't see me.

"Is there any—did she—" my sister starts.

I roll my shoulders. "It's been so long, Nudge. I'm not sure I could recognize her if I really did see her. Eight years."

"True love will out," she murmurs.

"And it's not like I can just ask her if her full name is Maximum Ride and if she grew up in Arizona, next to a kid named Fang, and if her mom died when she was ten, and if she has two other sisters—" I cut myself off. _My_ Max is unique.

"Maybe you'll find her," Nudge says breezily, "Maybe you won't. Either way, I think you should give this girl a chance. I think you like her, Fang. I can hear it in your voice. Just kind of ignore her name or ignore your past regarding someone with that name and see if it'll work out. She's cute, right?"

I hang up on her.


End file.
